To celebrate having the Most Outstanding Children’s Book of 2008 (according to the Mom’s Choice Awards), Dance in a Buffalo Skull is on sale for a couple of weeks.
If you don’t have this multiple award-winning book, now is the perfect opportunity to get it, so visit www.sdshspress.com to find out more.
Everyone in the office is ecstatic this morning. We just received word that Dance in a Buffalo Skull has won two awards from the Mom’s Choice Awards committee.
In fact, S. D. Nelson’s book has been voted the “Most Outstanding Children’s Book” of 2008! A great honor.
The second award is a gold medal for Children’s books for ages 5-8, focusing on myths, legends and fantasies.
Congratulations to everyone involved with the book, and a big thanks to the Mom’s Choice Awards for believing in this book.
Being a historical society we sometimes get stuck in the past.
In fact, the title of this post might even be just that; stuck in the past. An article in the March edition of PMA Independent, a magazine for the independent publishing industry discussed what fonts, or more properly in modern lingo, typefaces, say about you and what you are writing. Read the rest of this entry »
Just a tease.
We certainly don’t think so. After all, the SDSHS Press publishes serious books. In fact, it would seem there is little to worry about after all, despite the scare stories about the ruination of the book publishing industry by the internet and modern technology.
Will Murphy, senior editor at Random House recently said: “The serious book as we know it will only go away, will only be replaced by something else, when a moon-sized asteroid obliterates all life on Earth.”
So, read on.
Here at the Press, we recently found Library Thing, the great website that lets you tell everyone else what you are reading.
There are many reasons to enjoy this website, but perhaps one of the best is discovering books you might never have found otherwise. Entering books on to your library shelf, you quickly discover that at least one other person has read the same thing. “I wonder who it is,” you say to yourself. “What else have they got on their shelf?” So easily does the slippery slope to an afternoon of book browsing begin.
The Press now has its own library shelf on Library Thing. We see that there are a good number of people adding our books to their shelves, and even a few who are writing reviews and/or comments about our books. So, join up to Library Thing, add some of our books, and find out who else has the same interests and see where they might take you.
Thought I’d share a nice little review of Dance in a Buffalo Skull with you.
Click on the link to read more.
We think this book has a great chance to make a big splash.
One of the great things about the web is the circular nature of it all. Up pops a Google Alert on my e-mail. Our blog has been cited in someone else’s blog it tells me. First thing to do, is tell everyone else that someone else is talking about us. The point is, we’re on the radar so to speak.
Here in the office, editing continues feverishly, as it always does I suppose. The first book of the 2008 list has gone to design. Look for Along the Grapevine Trail: Vineyards and Wineries in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska towards the end of the summer.
Our newest book is all about African Americans in South Dakota. Forgotten Lives by Betti VanEpps-Taylor looks at the vital minority of African Americans in this state over the least two hundred years.
Oscar Micheaux, the acclaimed filmmaker, lived here, and York, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their Expedition, also spent time in what would become South Dakota, but most of the people in the book are not well-known outside of their own communities. Their stories offer much to twenty-first century Americans still struggling to come to grips with their racial history.
It is always nice to have someone else tell you what a great job you are doing. When we start work on a book, we believe that it is going to be good, otherwise why else would we start the project. When the book is finally printed and people start reading it there is a little nervous energy. Will people like it? Will they want to buy it? Will they tell other people about it? So, when someone tells you directly, through a review, that you have done something good, well, let’s just say that the office is a happy place.
Here’s what the esteemed School Library Journal has just written about Dance in a Buffalo Skull. As you can imagine, we’re rather chuffed!
School Library Journal, 3/1/2008 ZITKALA-ŠA. Dance in a Buffalo Skull. vol. 2. illus. by S. D. Nelson. unpaged. (Prairie Tales from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press). bibliog. glossary. CIP. South Dakota State Historical Society. 2007. Tr $14.95. ISBN 978-0-9777955-2-9. LC 2007007099.
PreS-Gr 2—Zitkala-Ša recorded this Yankton Sioux story more than 100 years ago, but this tale of mice caught unaware is still satisfyingly scary. Out on the deep, dark prairie, a large group of mice is having a wild party inside an old buffalo skull. The small creatures, in festive paint and costume, are dancing, singing, and eating with abandon, and they have neglected to put anyone on security detail. Out of the dark emptiness stalks a wildcat that waits until the height of the music to suddenly appear, abruptly ending the festivities. This story was created to remind Yankton Sioux children to keep an eye out at all times, and it still does that. Zitkala-Ša is a wonderful storyteller—even with some old-fashioned language, the narrative tension builds deliciously to the scene of the fleeing mice. Nelson’s illustrations add to the tension between the creeping wildcat and the celebrating mice. Even the dark is a character here—children will almost need to squint through the shadows to see the animals at night. In the pictures of the party, by contrast, the glowing light and excited mice seem to vibrate with action. This tale would be perfect in a scary storytime, told with the lights down low.—Susan E. Murray, Glendale Public Library, AZ
We thought we’d help celebrate and promote Women’s History Month this March.
Two of our recent books are perfect for people interested in learning a little more about successful, strong women. Sunshine Always: The Courtship Letters of Alice Bower and George Philip of Dakota Territory, features the love letters sent between the founders of the Rapid City Journal. Alice worked as a typesetter in the 1880s, a time when women were not normally found in such a position. Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life, discusses Laura’s writing career in relation to her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, Wilder’s editor.
We think these women were great and deserve to be recognised this month and always.
